Photograph album compiled by a British nurse, Marjorie M. Thomson, during the Mesopotamian Campaign of the First World War.

£2,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

An excellent photographic record of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) taken by Marjorie M. Thomson, who served with the 23rd British Stationary Hospital during the First World War. As the great majority of Mesopotamian Campaign albums were compiled by male soldiers, different perspectives, and especially those of women, are extremely rare. Thomson was on the nursing staff of the 23rd Stationary Hospital which was initially situated at Amarah on the banks of the river Tigris. The hospital made up part of the medical infrastructure that supported the British troops who had been active in Mesopotamia since November 1914 — consisting of field ambulances, hospital ships and general hospitals. Sometime after Maude’s entry into Baghdad in March 1917, the 23rd BS Hospital moved to the city, taking over from No.20 Combined Field Ambulance. The building had previously housed a Turkish Military Hospital and was described by one nurse as “‘filthy and verminous’” (Juliet Piggott, Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps , 1990, p.60). The nurses did however like their new environs, having traded tents for “flat-roofed French-style houses” and gardens ( ibid., p.60). Thomson’s photographs cover her time at Amarah and Baghdad, and numerous other locations from Basrah to the northerly city of Mosul. They even stretch to cities in Iran, showing that she accompanied the British forces tasked with filling the vacuum left by departing Russians. Somewhat surprisingly, only two images capture the st

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